Hellfire Weapons were a Horrible Addition

[Captain Panda]

While perusing the items in Descent Into Avernus (overall a module that I find very solid, one of the best), I saw a simple uncommon magic item: the Hellfire Weapon. Hellfire weapons are a horrible addition and undermine the entire point of devils and the Nine Hells. The effect is simple: "Any humanoid killed by an attack made with this weapon has its soul funneled into the River Styx, where it's reborn instantly as a lemure devil." That's all it does.

The book itself as well as many, many devil-related lore items preceding it all paint devils as scheming, clever manipulators who slowly turn people to evil to acquire their souls. This process can take years, but that's okay, because devils have patience and are willing to play the long game and plant seeds. They are willing to give deals favorable to mortals as loss-leaders to get their trust, they are willing to slowly poison someone and boil the frog gradually over years. Corrupting a mortal's soul is a point of pride to a devil. They keep hell stocked through acquiring souls, either through corruption or tempting mortals to sell their souls for favors. That's why devils are cool, and in my opinion much more interesting villains than demons. They are cunning, patient, and actually stick to the terms of their deals. That's interesting.

But why bother with all that temptation and corruption? You can just give a church full of peasants (each with 4 hit points) a solid whack with a Hellfire Weapon and send them all careening into Avernus as Lemures. Remember, Lemures are devils, lawful evil incarnate. That's a hard, non-optional alignment shift; if you aren't lawful evil, you aren't a devil. You don't need to corrupt them, they are already with the program. Why is Asmodeus wasting his time with contracts and planting seeds of evil in the hearts of men when one good bonk on the noggin from a Hellfire Mace wielded by a devil will serve the same purpose and get him souls at a far superior rate?

Assuming the humans would notice and somehow stop the devils cold, the Hellfire weapon could instead just be used on baby kobolds. Set up a bunch of kobold slaves, force them to mass reproduce, and smash the babies with a hellfire mace. Remember, devils are evil, they don't care how unpleasant the method is, they care about results. Hellfire weapons render the core, cool idea of devils as sly manipulators who slowly bait the hook and get good people to turn bad utterly nonsensical.

[gkathellar]

Wow, yeah, that's a pretty terrible idea. Haven't read Descent Into Avernus, but that's ... that's very stupid.

[Lunali]

As far as I can tell, the module only has them available in Avernus, so I think I would rule that they only work in the Nine Hells, possibly only in Avernus. This makes them dangerous to morals visiting the plane, but those should be rare and corrupting those mortals is more appealing as they can get more out of an evil mortal than a lemure.

[Randomthom]

As an item with no context I agree, they screw with the D&D cosmology horribly.

They could lead to some interesting spin-off stories though.

Imagine the fear it would create among the faithful when they realise that they could still end up in the hells despite their faith.

Imagine how pissed Kelemvor specifically would be at realising that his job of deciding where the souls of the dead go is being bypassed.

Imagine the fear it would create in the Abyss when they realise that the devil's recruitment has gone into overdrive.

Lots of possibilities.

You could create a side-quest to eliminate the source of these weapons with a bonus for each weapon they destroy individually perhaps? Players will enjoy being able to affect the world itself.

Either that or change it up, make it one single legendary weapon with this property.

[Brookshw]

If you just need cannon fodder, sure. If you want more powerful devils from the get-go then corrupting is still desirable. Of course, you DO want cannon fodder so how much corrupting you want to do is still a question. Another factor is probably the reaction you'd get from the gods and celestials if you were running around the Prime, slaying indiscriminately and stealing souls would probably be pretty swift and final.

[MrStabby]

Eeech. Yeah, not really a good addition.

Now if there were one... a single legendary weapon that formed the basis of a plot then I could see it bringing something fun to the table,but as it is? Nah. Not something you want.

[Temperjoke]

Alright we should be careful on this subject, as it involves a recent adventure that people may be just starting soon.

In context though, it's possible that these weapons are a recent creation and illegal on a cosmological scale, the devils just haven't been caught yet. Devils pulling entire cities into Avernus and dunking them and their peoples en mass into the River Styx is a recent move by Zariel. This creates lots of lemure cannon fodder. These weapons are an extension of that. But MtoF indicates that this sort of action is not a legal move in the sense that these people aren't necessarily ones who would end up in the Hells normally. It might be that the only reason they're getting away with it in the case of Elturel because the people were all tricked by another mortal into signing the agreement with Zariel (this is due to the oath to defend Elturel, it's a loophole because it wasn't Zariel who lied to the people, it was another mortal who did). There might be greater repercussions if they tried this somewhere else without the groundwork laid in advance. That would mean then that this sort of weapon can't be used outside the Hells.

Even then, devils are rewarded more points for corrupting and seducing people into evil. There is less incentive for just creating cannon fodder than there is for corrupting a person and creating a more powerful individual. What this sort of weapon is good for is when you you're fighting for your life, you at least get more use out of your dead opponent than you would just their corpse.

[Asensur]

Alright we should be careful on this subject, as it involves a recent adventure that people may be just starting soon.

In context though, it's possible that these weapons are a recent creation and illegal on a cosmological scale, the devils just haven't been caught yet. Devils pulling entire cities into Avernus and dunking them and their peoples en mass into the River Styx is a recent move by Zariel. This creates lots of lemure cannon fodder. These weapons are an extension of that. But MtoF indicates that this sort of action is not a legal move in the sense that these people aren't necessarily ones who would end up in the Hells normally. It might be that the only reason they're getting away with it in the case of Elturel because the people were all tricked by another mortal into signing the agreement with Zariel (this is due to the oath to defend Elturel, it's a loophole because it wasn't Zariel who lied to the people, it was another mortal who did). There might be greater repercussions if they tried this somewhere else without the groundwork laid in advance. That would mean then that this sort of weapon can't be used outside the Hells.

Even then, devils are rewarded more points for corrupting and seducing people into evil. There is less incentive for just creating cannon fodder than there is for corrupting a person and creating a more powerful individual. What this sort of weapon is good for is when you you're fighting for your life, you at least get more use out of your dead opponent than you would just their corpse.

This.

Is a recent creation for devils and players must find where they are forged to stop the process.

[Grey Watcher]

I think it depends on what happens to someone who dies and goes to the Nine Hells by the traditional means. If, as I seem to remember from something in previous editions, all mortals get turned into lemures and have to (somehow) earn a promotion to something else, then yeah, Hellfire weapons kinda defeat the point. But if you go with some other model, it makes a little more sense. For example, souls are a kind of commodity or currency, and that turning them into lemures is but one thing one might do with them (a thing that, might I add, makes them nearly useless as trade goods), then the Hellfire weapons have a more sensible place in the lore. Getting a soul "properly" is much more useful and versatile than going straight to lemures, you can trade them, use them to power evil artifacts, eat them as candy, convert them into minions*, who knows?

If you specifically need a zerg rush's worth of lemures, Hellfire weapons are the quick and easy path, yes. But it's also absurdly risky, since getting them in any meaningful quantity is going to attract the notice of nosey paladins and pesky angels. And then you've got plucky adventurers knocking out ever more important parts of your infrastructure because they have some bee in their bonnet about not allowing atrocities against innocents to continue.

Not to mention the various planar forces trying to stop you for one reason or another (the Good guys don't like you harming innocents, the Lawful people are mad at you for disrupting the rightful distribution of souls, the Chaotic ones are screaming about your trampling of freedom, etc.)

And don't think the kobold baby farm idea will get them off your case either. Sure one or two of the Lawful Racist type gods might be willing to ignore it, but most entities are still going to have the same objections. Heck because you're literally murdering babies at that point, everyone will probably be even angrier, so the added zeal will likely more than compensate for one or two missing coalition members.

Basically, any Devil who understands anything at all knows that this is, at best, way more trouble than it's worth. A plan that's going to bring a multiverse of trouble on your head within something as small as a mortal lifetime is just plain idiocy. To shrink it to mortal scales, it doesn't do much good if your bank fraud scheme makes you filthy rich if the Feds arrest you and seize your assets within the week.

And you can bet that all the Devils that knew better are not only going to refuse to come to your defense, but are going to make sure that The Army of Light knows that this was all your idea. Heck, they might even join up in taking you down just to make sure that the angels and inevitables and whatever else know you acted alone.

And if you're somehow powerful enough to withstand that much backlash, what difference does a few billion lemures even make at your scale?

TL;DR: You can certainly try, but the sheer volume of beings who will refuse to let you get away with it is overwhelming.

*As an aside, I like the idea that, video game style, you could fuse a bunch of souls together to get a higher order Devil immediately rather than having to "train up" from a lemure. Sure, if you have time, training up is more cost effective, since you could conceivably get a whole Pit Fiend out of just one soul, but sometimes you need a Pit Fiend today and not 3,000 years from now.

[Fable Wright]

Actually, they date back to before Descent. I've been bemoaning the lore idiocy since the Narzugon's Hellfire Lance in MToF.

[Keltest]

Something else to consider is that devils don't just corrupt mortals to turn them into lemures. Theyre pushing the mortals into furthering their own goals in the process. You shank a peasant, ok, you've got some new cannon fodder, but that's hardly the end goal for most devils, they have things they actually want to accomplish. Maybe they want the soul as-is, without changing it into a devil. Maybe they want something retrieved from the Prime Material Plane. Maybe they want to have a laugh at the expense of the poor mortals theyre sending around on quests. You cant do any of that by just murdering someone. Theyre not demons, after all, they have class.

[MaxWilson]

Actually, they date back to before Descent. I've been bemoaning the lore idiocy since the Narzugon's Hellfire Lance in MToF.

Especially because the Narzugon lance works on demons too, meaning that it can win the Blood War.

[1Pirate]

Huh, I'll have to do some re-reading. My impression was that the hellfire weapons only worked in the hells. The Narzugon lances were specific to them and you need a corrupted paladin to make a Narzugon. AFB, can devils make soul coins out of lemures? If they can't, that might be a check on hellfire weapon overuse.

However it could present a problem as Archdevils can apparently promote lemures to whatever rank they want as Kreeg shows up as an Aminzu if you kill him earlier in the module.

[Brutalitops]

This was my big problem with dragon heist

Their are this group of villains the cassalanters that plan to sacrifice an entire festival to hell which is to me completely against the lore, if the bad guys can just kill you and take your soul then their is literally no point in any scheming. It breaks the lore completely and makes no sense.

[HappyDaze]

This was my big problem with dragon heist

Their are this group of villains the cassalanters that plan to sacrifice an entire festival to hell which is to me completely against the lore, if the bad guys can just kill you and take your soul then their is literally no point in any scheming. It breaks the lore completely and makes no sense.

There's still plenty of reasons for scheming. There will be good-aligned groups that will try to stop you and evil-aligned groups that will either try to stop you or be in competition to do something similar (evil groups can seldom rely on other evil groups to be friendly). Now I will grant that there will be less attempting to seduce others into sacrificing themselves, but the devils will instead work on seducing others into sacrificing others to them. It actually would net fewer but bigger evil fish for the devils.

[Chaosmancer]

Actually, they date back to before Descent. I've been bemoaning the lore idiocy since the Narzugon's Hellfire Lance in MToF.

I was going to point this out. As well as the Hellfire Engine from the same book.

And, I completely agree that it is completely stupid, lore breaking, and ruins everything for no benefit.

I mean, the entire point about a Devil's form of evil is that it is a choice. I've actually run with this in games I've been DMing. Can a person who chose evil for personal gain truly seek redemption when they are reaping what they sowed? It makes stopping devil recruitment hard, because Devil's aren't really lying to you.

Also, I never have a Devil pull something like holding a sword to a baby and saying "Sign away your soul or your child dies" because that isn't a real choice. But, if you go to a mother with a sick kid and say "Hey, I feel for your situation. I can help. I can guarantee your child lives a healthy and happy life. All I ask is a little bit of payment, and wouldn't a good mother sacrifice anything for her child?" And that is a choice. The Devil isn't forcing you, it isn't going to enact consequences (directly) to coerce you into signing. They look for where you can be tempted to step off the path, and then drag you down.That is what makes them compelling villains, makes them evil, and makes them hard to stop. Because, they sound like they are right, and you can do short term good by taking them up on their offer. But long term....

[Laserlight]

"Any humanoid killed by an attack made with this weapon has its soul funneled into the River Styx, where it's reborn instantly as a lemure devil."

If that showed up in my universe, about one Bonus Action later one deity or another would say "Yeah, no, you're not whacking MY followers with that thing. Here, have a God Sized Lightning Bolt. Oh, did that kill you, everyone who knew how to make that weapon, and all your and their immediate friends and family? Gosh, maybe you shouldn't have been quite so much of a jerk."

Hijacking someone's Eternal Destination is a no-no, even if you leave them human (or elf, or whatever). Converting them into a demon or devil? Absolutely not.

[Fable Wright]

If that showed up in my universe, about one Bonus Action later one deity or another would say "Yeah, no, you're not whacking MY followers with that thing. Here, have a God Sized Lightning Bolt. Oh, did that kill you, everyone who knew how to make that weapon, and all your and their immediate friends and family? Gosh, maybe you shouldn't have been quite so much of a jerk."

Hijacking someone's Eternal Destination is a no-no, even if you leave them human (or elf, or whatever). Converting them into a demon or devil? Absolutely not.

Oh, not only that.

The Hellfire weapons completely and uncontroversially violate the Pact Primeval. You know the one thing that allows Asmodeus to operate as he does? The Angels and the Gods could evict Asmodeus and repossess the Hells for this violation.

[micahaphone]

Is the Pact Primeval detailed anywhere? I'm assuming MToF would be the place, if it is. I'm surprised that I can't find a dedicated page for it on the forgotten realms wiki

[Psychoalpha]

This makes them dangerous to morals visiting the plane,

I feel like if you have any morals you probably wouldn't be there in the first place. ;)

[Temperjoke]

Is the Pact Primeval detailed anywhere? I'm assuming MToF would be the place, if it is. I'm surprised that I can't find a dedicated page for it on the forgotten realms wiki

It's not explicitly detailed in 5e materials yet.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Omg I love the idea of a Hellfire Weapon.

Someone working for a Devil gives the party paladin a quest to get a Holy Avenger type weapon. Awesome, right! No. It's a Hellfire Weapon disguised with some high level magic to seem like a Holy Avenger type weapon. Maybe a Wish could work?

Maybe the party Warlock is tasked by their Devil patron to switch out the party's weapons with Hellfire ones?

So, the entire campaign you can drop hints about it or whatever and eventually the Paladin is tracked down by some angels or whatever for being an agent of evil.

The Paladin is lawful good. The Paladin has never once broken their oath. The Paladin is now fighting LG angels because the Paladin has been creating devils left and right. You tricked and punished a character and not a player.

So many fun things to do....

[Captain Panda]

So many fun things to do....

And all it cost was the lore coherence of one of the most iconic villain types. :smallfrown:

Could a hellfire weapon be put into a scenario where it works and is fun for players and DM? Maybe. It does so at the cost of what devils are. It takes away their need to tempt people into acts of evil, and that is just too steep a cost. Sure, you can say "Oh, well, they do that too anyway, even with Hellfire weapons." That doesn't make any sense. Devils are not stupid, and they don't waste resources. It is established, in fact it is established in this edition, that tempting mortals is a prime goal of devils for advancement, and that when a mortal is corrupted they just become a Lemure. They don't become a special devil with extra evil points in most cases, they become another warm body to throw at the front line.

If you are a truly evil being and have access to weapons like this, and you're intelligent (which devils are), there are so many ways to get souls that aren't as resource intensive as turning mortals evil.
1. Equip factions with these weapons, for free. They get free weapons, why ask questions? Lots of free souls, no one is the wiser.
2. Pick a humanoid that reproduces quickly, smash humanoid babies with these weapons in an isolated location. Instant soul farm.
3. Just go on a murderous rampage on any world, on every world! A cr5 devil can lay waste not only to commoners, but to most guards with ease. If the devil dies they just come back to hell, and they can get a huge pile of bodies for hell in the process.

Do any of those methods sound as fun or interesting for a campaign as the devil's poisonous words tempting characters into acts of slowly increasing evil? Do they sound appropriate, thematically, for devils? I assert that these actions would make more sense for demons than devils; the distinction is an important one. One item should not destroy years and years of lore regarding one of the most popular villain types to allow for corner-case fun that might be possible.

And on a less lore note and a more player fun note, is it ever really appropriate to compel an alignment change like this? You turn a paladin who is good by choice into a devil who is evil. No saving throw, no slow descent into darkness through morally ambiguous choices, no warning, just... boom, in hell, you serve Asmodeus now. I have no problem killing players or subjecting them to all kinds of suffering, but telling a player they are just evil now through absolutely no fault of their own... I cannot imagine that ever being fun. In fact, not only is it not a fun idea, I can't imagine it ever being a satisfying story moment, and those don't even have to be fun, but they do need to make narrative sense and feel earned.

"Boop, bonked you on the noggin, you're evil now!" The more I think about this stupid item the more I want to angry tweet at Jeremy Crawford. :furious:

[SpawnOfMorbo]

And all it cost was the lore coherence of one of the most iconic villain types. :smallfrown:

Could a hellfire weapon be put into a scenario where it works and is fun for players and DM? Maybe. It does so at the cost of what devils are. It takes away their need to tempt people into acts of evil, and that is just too steep a cost. Sure, you can say "Oh, well, they do that too anyway, even with Hellfire weapons." That doesn't make any sense. Devils are not stupid, and they don't waste resources. It is established, in fact it is established in this edition, that tempting mortals is a prime goal of devils for advancement, and that when a mortal is corrupted they just become a Lemure. They don't become a special devil with extra evil points in most cases, they become another warm body to throw at the front line.

If you are a truly evil being and have access to weapons like this, and you're intelligent (which devils are), there are so many ways to get souls that aren't as resource intensive as turning mortals evil.
1. Equip factions with these weapons, for free. They get free weapons, why ask questions? Lots of free souls, no one is the wiser.
2. Pick a humanoid that reproduces quickly, smash humanoid babies with these weapons in an isolated location. Instant soul farm.
3. Just go on a murderous rampage on any world, on every world! A cr5 devil can lay waste not only to commoners, but to most guards with ease. If the devil dies they just come back to hell, and they can get a huge pile of bodies for hell in the process.

Do any of those methods sound as fun or interesting for a campaign as the devil's poisonous words tempting characters into acts of slowly increasing evil? Do they sound appropriate, thematically, for devils? I assert that these actions would make more sense for demons than devils; the distinction is an important one. One item should not destroy years and years of lore regarding one of the most popular villain types to allow for corner-case fun that might be possible.

And on a less lore note and a more player fun note, is it ever really appropriate to compel an alignment change like this? You turn a paladin who is good by choice into a devil who is evil. No saving throw, no slow descent into darkness through morally ambiguous choices, no warning, just... boom, in hell, you serve Asmodeus now. I have no problem killing players or subjecting them to all kinds of suffering, but telling a player they are just evil now through absolutely no fault of their own... I cannot imagine that ever being fun. In fact, not only is it not a fun idea, I can't imagine it ever being a satisfying story moment, and those don't even have to be fun, but they do need to make narrative sense and feel earned.

"Boop, bonked you on the noggin, you're evil now!" The more I think about this stupid item the more I want to angry tweet at Jeremy Crawford. :furious:

I really don't care about the lore, the lore is what you make of it and plenty of tables don't even touch the official stuff.

If you tweet angrily at JC about this, you really need to get a new hobby and chill out.

[Fable Wright]

I really don't care about the lore, the lore is what you make of it and plenty of tables don't even touch the official stuff.

If you tweet angrily at JC about this, you really need to get a new hobby and chill out.

Cool. That's your opinion.

Meanwhile, for 32 years since the 1987 Manual of the Planes, Devils have been all about corrupting people, while demons have been about destroying people. Two huge, trope-evocative concepts with a bunch of coherent lore about the hows & whys to make it easier to plot out things happening and provide hooks for DMs in a creative block to expand the concept.

And then this publication makes an item that invalidates the need for corruption-type plots at all. Why bother corrupting when logically, it's more efficient to just harvest people en masse?

When a supplement just says "Yeah, you can throw out all the intrigues and stuff. You want motivations for devils, just have them go kill people", on accident no less, one may be justified in becoming riled up.

[Captain Panda]

I really don't care about the lore, the lore is what you make of it and plenty of tables don't even touch the official stuff.


That's fine, but that's not an excuse to disregard/destroy established lore.



If you tweet angrily at JC about this, you really need to get a new hobby and chill out.

I actually tweeted my concern to him very politely; that was said somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Though I disagree with the assessment that if your hobby ever makes you angry you need to get a new one. People can be passionate about their hobbies.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

That's fine, but that's not an excuse to disregard/destroy established lore.



I actually tweeted my concern to him very politely; that was said somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Though I disagree with the assessment that if your hobby ever makes you angry you need to get a new one. People can be passionate about their hobbies.

Yes it is.

Keeping things, for the sake of keeping them, stagnates the game.

Plenty of us don't wamt the game to stagnate. Devil's can still operate the same way, I even showed how a Devil would be the cunning one to trick someone into using the weapon.

Maybe this is a sign of things to come, maybe Asmodeous is finally starting his endgame? Would make for a great adventure and a great way to sneak in little hints at it.

And yeah, totally "tongue in cheek", once you got called out on going overboard because of fluff.


Edit

You do know that as a dm you are free to ignore these weapons.

As a player, either join a dm that is using them or not, no one is forcing your hand.

[Fable Wright]

Keeping things, for the sake of keeping them, stagnates the game.

And changing things, for no reason, in a way that reduces the diversity of threats that you can build a campaign around while offering literally nothing in return, is a terrible one.

Your plot is simply about a magic sword that makes you do evil things for having it. You could easily have given the item an Abyssal flavor, since it's not mass produced by the legions of hell, and because it's one particular demon lord who has been receiving the souls and who you now need to hunt down and kill to right the wrongs you did. Classic Abyss.

Except that it's a devil weapon, mass produced, and used en masse to harvest souls in a horrifying industrialized holocaust sense, because that's what devils are. And at that point, are they really any different than demons? Except for the fact that you can never get the souls back. Ever. No happy ending or redemption story here.

[JackPhoenix]

Except that it's a devil weapon, mass produced, and used en masse to harvest souls in a horrifying industrialized holocaust sense, because that's what devils are.

What "en masse"? Devils can't get into material plane without being summoned, which rather limits their ability to get those weapons there. And once on material plane, various factions can intervene, find the source, get rid of the summoner and block their way once again. And that's even assuming there *is* mass production in the first place, and it's not some lower-ranking devil doing things behind Asmodeus' back... the boss would hardly be pleased if he found out, for multiple reasons, both internal (he doesn't want his underlings to get more powerful) and external (interplanar agencies would not not look kindly at that kind of stuff). Of course, he may be aware of what's going on, but he's not an idiot.... if someone comes to complain, he can "punish the one responsible" and deny he's got anything to do with that.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

And changing things, for no reason, in a way that reduces the diversity of threats that you can build a campaign around while offering literally nothing in return, is a terrible one.

Your plot is simply about a magic sword that makes you do evil things for having it. You could easily have given the item an Abyssal flavor, since it's not mass produced by the legions of hell, and because it's one particular demon lord who has been receiving the souls and who you now need to hunt down and kill to right the wrongs you did. Classic Abyss.

Except that it's a devil weapon, mass produced, and used en masse to harvest souls in a horrifying industrialized holocaust sense, because that's what devils are. And at that point, are they really any different than demons? Except for the fact that you can never get the souls back. Ever. No happy ending or redemption story here.

No one said it was just for the sake of changing, it's to breath new life into the same old story. But I know one thing, the boomer ideology of "back in my day it was so much better don't change things rabble rabble" is worse. Way worse.

I started with 2e, thankfully 3e was better. I love 4e, best version of the game for me, but it has flaws and I didn't want 5e to be a carbon copy. Change is good and very much needed to keep things fresh and interesting.

Wait, who says there has to be a happy ending? The world isn't all sunshine and rainbows.

[Chaosmancer]

Yes it is.

Keeping things, for the sake of keeping them, stagnates the game.

Plenty of us don't wamt the game to stagnate. Devil's can still operate the same way, I even showed how a Devil would be the cunning one to trick someone into using the weapon.


No one said it was just for the sake of changing, it's to breath new life into the same old story. But I know one thing, the boomer ideology of "back in my day it was so much better don't change things rabble rabble" is worse. Way worse.

I started with 2e, thankfully 3e was better. I love 4e, best version of the game for me, but it has flaws and I didn't want 5e to be a carbon copy. Change is good and very much needed to keep things fresh and interesting.

Wait, who says there has to be a happy ending? The world isn't all sunshine and rainbows.


I agree that keeping things for the sake of keeping them stagnates the game.

But this is adding something that has no value to the game, except for removing an excellent source of motivation and story.

Honestly, I'm curious. Let us not do the "trick the party into using them route" what interesting story can you tell with these weapons? Because, as I understand it, becoming a Lemure is permanent. Even Wish cannot reverse it, unlike Slaad transformations which require Wish to reverse. So... what is the point? Here have the most self-sacrifing holiest person to ever walk the earth, let us say it is the Elven version of Mother Thersea. A devil stabs her with a Hellfire sword. She's a lawful evil Lemure now. Here is a dwarven paladin, the literal grandson of Moradin, a mortal by choice, fighting and living as mortals do. Stabbed with a hellfire sword. He's a Lawful Evil Lemure now.

Heck, all it requires is having a soul. Naga's have souls. Those Guardian Naga's are Lemures now. Couatl's have souls. Lemure now.

And you can't reverse it, you can't do something to prevent it except don't get killed.

Where is the value? Where is the fun?


What "en masse"? Devils can't get into material plane without being summoned, which rather limits their ability to get those weapons there. And once on material plane, various factions can intervene, find the source, get rid of the summoner and block their way once again. And that's even assuming there *is* mass production in the first place, and it's not some lower-ranking devil doing things behind Asmodeus' back... the boss would hardly be pleased if he found out, for multiple reasons, both internal (he doesn't want his underlings to get more powerful) and external (interplanar agencies would not not look kindly at that kind of stuff). Of course, he may be aware of what's going on, but he's not an idiot.... if someone comes to complain, he can "punish the one responsible" and deny he's got anything to do with that.

See, here is the problem. We can tell immediately, this is a problem on the macro-political scale. Asmodeus would never green-light these things. They cause too many problems.

But, we can tell they are mass produced because of one thing. They are labeled as "Uncommon", and that is uncommon from the perspective of the players, who do not live in the Nine Hells. Which should make them no problem for any Devil to get their hands on. For an example, the Rope of Entanglement which any Eriynes can have as a part of their standard equipment is Rare. So, these Hellfire weapons are not some super-secret back door weapon that only a few people know about.

Which cascades into all these problems.

[Fable Wright]

No one said it was just for the sake of changing, it's to breath new life into the same old story. But I know one thing, the boomer ideology of "back in my day it was so much better don't change things rabble rabble" is worse. Way worse.

You appear to be positing that they changed it, so therefore it's inherently a good move. Which is just as much a fallacy.

There are good changes. The reinstatement of Zariel, for example, was an enjoyable change despite how interesting Bel was. Eberron's iconoclastic take on Baator in 4e remains my favorite interpretation to date.

But this isn't being life into a story, it's removing entire story archetypes without even discussing the long term impacts of the change on the cosmology. Changing things isn't inherently good or bad. There are dramatic changes that are good, and dramatic changes that are awful.

This is like 4e removing Lawful Evil and Chaotic Good as alignments. Some people didn't care. The people who enjoyed those alignments and writing plots around those archetypes were incensed. This removed options without giving anything back, and so was a Bad Change, and one WotC walked back.

[JackPhoenix]

See, here is the problem. We can tell immediately, this is a problem on the macro-political scale. Asmodeus would never green-light these things. They cause too many problems.

But, we can tell they are mass produced because of one thing. They are labeled as "Uncommon", and that is uncommon from the perspective of the players, who do not live in the Nine Hells. Which should make them no problem for any Devil to get their hands on. For an example, the Rope of Entanglement which any Eriynes can have as a part of their standard equipment is Rare. So, these Hellfire weapons are not some super-secret back door weapon that only a few people know about.

Which cascades into all these problems.

Magic item rarity doesn't tell you anything about how common they are. They give you a rough idea of price and effort required to make one. As Hellfire weapons are not part of any treasure tables and not encountered outside the one specific adventure, where the players DO visit 9 hells, you can't make arguments how known or prevalent they are anywhere else.

Edit: also, you can't use it to turn couatl or naga into a lemure, as they only work on humanoids.

[Fable Wright]

Magic item rarity doesn't tell you anything about how common they are.

Then why are they graduated Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and Legendary, with some Common items being craftable by anyone with just a herbalism kit and proficiency, with Legendary Items being even rarer than Very Rare items on treasure tables? :smallconfused:

[HappyDaze]

If that showed up in my universe, about one Bonus Action later one deity or another would say "Yeah, no, you're not whacking MY followers with that thing. Here, have a God Sized Lightning Bolt. Oh, did that kill you, everyone who knew how to make that weapon, and all your and their immediate friends and family? Gosh, maybe you shouldn't have been quite so much of a jerk."

Hijacking someone's Eternal Destination is a no-no, even if you leave them human (or elf, or whatever). Converting them into a demon or devil? Absolutely not.

Things like this push me more towards Eberron's take where deities do not directly intervene (and may be unable to do so) so that mortals need to deal with such things on their own.

[JackPhoenix]

Then why are they graduated Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and Legendary, with some Common items being craftable by anyone with just a herbalism kit and proficiency, with Legendary Items being even rarer than Very Rare items on treasure tables? :smallconfused:

Because the creators of 5e decided to do it that way, even though there are supposedly "uncommon" items that are unique, and "legendary" items that could be mass-produced (if their production didn't use so much resources).

You think that Sovereign Glue or high-level spell scrolls should be more valuable or unique than, say, Broom of Flying? I've never seen the brooms being mass-produced, yet they are uncommon items....

[Chaosmancer]

Magic item rarity doesn't tell you anything about how common they are. They give you a rough idea of price and effort required to make one. As Hellfire weapons are not part of any treasure tables and not encountered outside the one specific adventure, where the players DO visit 9 hells, you can't make arguments how known or prevalent they are anywhere else.

So, are we going to say that price and effort shouldn't translate into rarity? I mean, I guess it shouldn't since the 1,500 gp Platemail obviously takes a lot of time and effort but is more common than the Uncommon magic weapon +1.

But I think that it is fairly well understood that there are fewer Very Rare items than Rare items and fewer Rare items than Uncommon items. So, saying something is "Uncommon" should indicate a relative ease of finding them compared to Rare and Very Rare items.



Edit: also, you can't use it to turn couatl or naga into a lemure, as they only work on humanoids.

Ah, I was assuming they worked the same as the Hellfire Engine and the Hellfire Lance which simply state "any creature killed has it's soul"

Doesn't make it much better, actually, since it makes it look like they took a look and decided to limit it makes it worse from a design standpoint, but I could be wrong.



Things like this push me more towards Eberron's take where deities do not directly intervene (and may be unable to do so) so that mortals need to deal with such things on their own.

And how exactly are mortals supposed to "deal with" being irreversibly and uncounterably (word?) turned into devils?

There is no save, no requirement other than "get killed with this weapon".

So mortals do what? Go and destroy the mineral deposits in Baator? Remove the knowledge of making these weapons from the universe?

I don't exactly see options here.

[Fable Wright]

Because the creators of 5e decided to do it that way, even though there are supposedly "uncommon" items that are unique, and "legendary" items that could be mass-produced (if their production didn't use so much resources).

You think that Sovereign Glue or high-level spell scrolls should be more valuable or unique than, say, Broom of Flying? I've never seen the brooms being mass-produced, yet they are uncommon items....

And it's definitely a reasonable house rule to lower the rarity of Sovereign Glue and high level spell scrolls. But per RAW, yes, Brooms of Flying are crafted far more often than either.

I'm not aware of unique Uncommon items, though I could be mistaken.

[JackPhoenix]

And it's definitely a reasonable house rule to lower the rarity of Sovereign Glue and high level spell scrolls. But per RAW, yes, Brooms of Flying are crafted far more often than either.

I'm not aware of unique Uncommon items, though I could be mistaken.

Yet, you'll see +1 armor (rare) much more often than brooms of flying (uncommon).

There are few in adventures... Lightbringer from LMoP has a description that strongly suggests it's an unique item, for example.

[Captain Panda]

Magic item rarity doesn't tell you anything about how common they are. They give you a rough idea of price and effort required to make one. As Hellfire weapons are not part of any treasure tables and not encountered outside the one specific adventure, where the players DO visit 9 hells, you can't make arguments how known or prevalent they are anywhere else.


The source of these weapons, which I won't spoil, is actually revealed in the adventure. So your counter-argument in this regard could have worked, but unfortunately does not due to information that I will not spill here. That said, if it was just some underling doing something against Asmodeus' will and that was the explanation and it was a one-off, I'd be fine with that explanation. That doesn't break everything like what they currently have.

[Tanarii]

Yet, you'll see +1 armor (rare) much more often than brooms of flying (uncommon).
Not until you start getting level 11-16 Treasure Hoards.

Edit: statistically. Individual rolls obviously vary.

[JackPhoenix]

The source of these weapons, which I won't spoil, is actually revealed in the adventure. So your counter-argument in this regard could have worked, but unfortunately does not due to information that I will not spill here. That said, if it was just some underling doing something against Asmodeus' will and that was the explanation and it was a one-off, I'd be fine with that explanation. That doesn't break everything like what they currently have.

If a single forge with few workers under the command of disgraced devil looking for ways to overthrow his superior is the sole source of those weapons, it could hardly be called "mass production". And (ignoring the weapons are intended to be used in Blood War, where they wouldn't be of much use against demons) the whole thing smells of infernal intrigues, even if it's not mentioned in the book... if Asmodeus really would have a problem with those weapons, both devils in charge could blame the other, and if not, they are useful tools, one of them shows more interest in mortals than a typical devil, and the other looks for ways to increase his own power, so it could be an idea of either.